Things Fall Apart- Chinua Achebe
Plot
Overview-
Okonkwo is a wealthy and respected
warrior of the Umuofia clan, a lower Nigerian tribe that is part of a
consortium of nine connected villages. He is haunted by the actions of Unoka,
his cowardly and spendthrift father, who died in disrepute, leaving many
village debts unsettled. In response, Okonkwo became a clansman, warrior,
farmer, and family provider extraordinaire. He has a twelve-year-old son named
Nwoye whom he finds lazy;
Okonkwo worries that Nwoye will end up a failure like Unoka. In a settlement
with a neighboring tribe, Umuofia wins a virgin and a fifteen-year-old boy.
Okonkwo takes charge of the boy, Ikemefuna, and finds an ideal son in him.
Nwoye likewise forms a strong attachment to the newcomer. Despite his fondness
for Ikemefuna and despite the fact that the boy begins to call him “father,”
Okonkwo does not let himself show any affection for him.
During
the Week of Peace, Okonkwo accuses his youngest wife, Ojiugo, of negligence. He
severely beats her, breaking the peace of the sacred week. He makes some
sacrifices to show his repentance, but he has shocked his community
irreparably. Ikemefuna stays with Okonkwo’s family for three years. Nwoye looks
up to him as an older brother and, much to Okonkwo’s pleasure, develops a more
masculine attitude. One day, the locusts come to Umuofia—they will come every
year for seven years before disappearing for another generation. The village
excitedly collects them because they are good to eat when cooked.
Ogbuefi
Ezeudu, a respected village elder, informs Okonkwo in private that the Oracle
has said that Ikemefuna must be killed. He tells Okonkwo that because Ikemefuna
calls him “father,” Okonkwo should not take part in the boy’s death. Okonkwo
lies to Ikemefuna, telling him that they must return him to his home village.
Nwoye bursts into tears. As he walks with the men of Umuofia, Ikemefuna thinks
about seeing his mother. After several hours of walking, some of Okonkwo’s
clansmen attack the boy with machetes. Ikemefuna runs to Okonkwo for help. But
Okonkwo, who doesn’t wish to look weak in front of his fellow tribesmen, cuts
the boy down despite the Oracle’s admonishment. When Okonkwo returns home,
Nwoye deduces that his friend is dead.
Okonkwo sinks into a
depression, neither able to sleep nor eat. He visits his friend Obierika and
begins to feel revived a bit. Okonkwo’s daughter Ezinma falls ill, but she recovers
after Okonkwo gathers leaves for her medicine. The death of Ogbuefi Ezeudu is
announced to the surrounding villages by means of the ekwe, a musical instrument. Okonkwo feels
guilty because the last time Ezeudu visited him was to warn him against taking
part in Ikemefuna’s death. At Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s large and elaborate funeral, the
men beat drums and fire their guns. Tragedy compounds upon itself when
Okonkwo’s gun explodes and kills Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s sixteen-year-old son. Because
killing a clansman is a crime against the earth goddess, Okonkwo must take his
family into exile for seven years in order to atone. He gathers his most
valuable belongings and takes his family to his mother’s natal village, Mbanta.
The men from Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s quarter burn Okonkwo’s buildings and kill his
animals to cleanse the village of his sin.
Okonkwo’s
kinsmen, especially his uncle, Uchendu, receive him warmly. They help him build
a new compound of huts and lend him yam seeds to start a farm. Although he is
bitterly disappointed at his misfortune, Okonkwo reconciles himself to life in
his motherland. During the second year of Okonkwo’s exile, Obierika brings
several bags of cowries (shells used as currency) that he has made by selling
Okonkwo’s yams. Obierika plans to continue to do so until Okonkwo returns to
the village. Obierika also brings the bad news that Abame, another village, has
been destroyed by the white man.
Soon afterward, six
missionaries travel to Mbanta. Through an interpreter named Mr. Kiaga, the
missionaries’ leader, Mr. Brown,
speaks to the villagers. He tells them that their gods are false and that
worshipping more than one God is idolatrous. But the villagers do not
understand how the Holy Trinity can be accepted as one God. Although his aim is
to convert the residents of Umuofia to Christianity, Mr. Brown does not allow
his followers to antagonize the clan.
Mr. Brown grows ill and is
soon replaced by Reverend James Smith, an intolerant and strict man. The more
zealous converts are relieved to be free of Mr. Brown’s policy of restraint.
One such convert, Enoch, dares to unmask an egwugwu during the annual ceremony to honor
the earth deity, an act equivalent to killing an ancestral spirit. The next
day, the egwugwu burn
Enoch’s compound and Reverend Smith’s church to the ground.
The
District Commissioner is upset by the burning of the church and requests that
the leaders of Umuofia meet with him. Once they are gathered, however, the
leaders are handcuffed and thrown in jail, where they suffer insults and
physical abuse.After the prisoners are released, the clansmen hold a meeting,
during which five court messengers approach and order the clansmen to desist.
Expecting his fellow clan members to join him in uprising, Okonkwo kills their
leader with his machete. When the crowd allows the other messengers to escape,
Okonkwo realizes that his clan is not willing to go to war.
When the District
Commissioner arrives at Okonkwo’s compound, he finds that Okonkwo has hanged
himself. Obierika and his friends lead the commissioner to the body. Obierika
explains that suicide is a grave sin; thus, according to custom, none of
Okonkwo’s clansmen may touch his body. The commissioner, who is writing a book
about Africa, believes that the story of Okonkwo’s rebellion and death will
make for an interesting paragraph or two. He has already chosen the book’s
title: The
Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.Reference:
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/things/summary.html
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